“If it helps, I believe the feeling is mutual,” Lee said, dodging her as she set an elbow to his ribs.
She blew out a breath. “You were right about the General.”
“I feared as much,” he said with a half grin, half grimace.
“Should we feel bad for not coming to see him sooner?” She motioned behind her to the doors.
But Lee lifted his head higher, his mouth set in a hard line. “We’re here now.” And she knew where he was going with it when he glanced back up at her with some of that clarity in his gaze. “How badly do you think Nolan wants us to peek at those raid files?”
Sitting side by side in the Hideaway with their holoblocks on the table and fingers like anxious static, Lee drew up his old folders on the hub.
“Here we go De Zolar…” Lee murmured.
The raid files were right where they’d left them. They were even still sorted neatly under Lee’s system.
Most of them.
“That one,” Kat said, pointing to a flagged folder on “Evidential Support”floating in the middle of the flyover statistics.
“That’s got to be him,” Lee agreed. Their Commander’s secretary definitely had a style. He drew up the contents of the folder. “What have you got for us, Nolan—”
Kat stared numbly at the series of files that had been added to their hub. Aside from now residing in the wrong folder set, these also appeared to be in order. Exactly as they’d left them—three months ago. When they’d returned from—“These are from the Segura missions,” Kat breathed.
“Sure seems like it,” Lee said. He opened up one of the files from the original detailing, briefly checking its contents. “But if these are here, I wonder if—”
“We should check for the originals. On it,” Kat said, ponytail bobbing behind her as she dragged over her holoblock, drawing up her own files on the hub. “Searching for mission AX27-AR... And nothing.” She dropped her hands into her lap for about 1.5 seconds, then she was drawing up a second search. “AX13-AR?”
Again, she gaped, staring blankly at the empty hologram where two sets of old mission files should have lain. “They’ve wiped them. The original raid files, raid reports, they’re gone. Not even our higher clearances are pulling them up…”
As a gut check, she ran a couple more searches, but the rest of their old missions were all present and accounted for. Kafron. The moon mission. De Zolar… “Why would they wipe those files?”
“I don’t know. But something about this feels off,” Lee said.
“I wonder what was in that arrangement,” Kat mused aloud, softly enough that it would get lost in the lazy post-Laser Rounds flitting. Softly enough that they wouldn’t have to put weight behind it if it meant nothing.
“How are things looking from your end?” She glanced back over as he clicked into a few more of the replica files.
“The files have all been renamed. I’d wager they’ve been encrypted as well to make sure the content is not easilydetectable. And by the looks of them, the majority of files were added here this afternoon.” Lee squinted as he swiped through the holofile in front of him, drawing up yet another. “I’ve only had a chance to open a fraction of them, but from what I can tell, I’m guessing we’ll find copies of both raids here, along with who knows what else.” He blew out a breath.
“That’s good that’s—very meticulous.” Her eyes were already glazing over as she stared into the growing pile of glowing holofiles.
“That’s the Commander’s secretary Nolan for you.”
And when she glanced over at him, Lee merely raised his brows.Are you surprised?
Kat snorted, she supposed not. “I just wasn’t expecting this from him, not without the Commander’s sanctioning vote, that’s all. I know he doesn’t like us,” she said, rolling her eyes when Lee looked like he was about to interject. “He could get in serious trouble if he was caught.”
“He’d deny it,” Lee said.
“He so would.” Kat laughed softly. “But that’s not the point. I think he really believes we can find something to help the Commander.”
“I hope we can,” she said a second later.
“You and me both, Hanneman. You and me both.” But when she looked over, his gaze had caught on the leg of a very uninteresting black leather armchair across the Hideaway.
“What are you thinking?” she asked quietly enough so as not to raze his thought trail if he wasn’t ready for her.
“It’s just the timing for these… and something that was said today.” Lee’s gaze had dropped even lower to study the backs of his hands. “He left us the clearance before the General had even left the ship. But I don’t think he would have given us these files if we hadn’t gone to see him first.”
